Train fare scare

There's a rather alarming front page on Rupert Murdoch's Times on government proposals for deregulating rail fares.

RAIL fares will more than treble for some journeys under government plans to scrap saver tickets and give private operators greater freedom to set prices, The Times has learnt.

Passengers who are unable to book ahead will have to pay a substantial premium even if they travel during off-peak hours. Many will be forced to buy a standard open return ticket, which, in the case of the London to Manchester route, will cost �202, compared with the saver price of �57.10.

One the face of it, this sounds like the doomsday scenario the opponents of privatisation warned us about. Train passengers have already endured fare rises well above inflation for several years. If there was to be an overnight trebling of petrol prices, there'd be riots in the streets, and the government would fall within a week.

But is the tabloid Times exaggerating things for the cynical purpose of selling newspapers? One commenter on the uk.railway newsgroup has suggested that the journalist writing that piece is a bit of an anti-rail loon, and his speculations should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The Scotsman has a rather more sober analysis, based on actually speaking to the train companies.

A spokesman for Virgin Trains said: "Long-distance operators face intense competition from the private car and airlines. We have found by experience that the best way to meet that competition is by improving train services and offering cheap fares.

"The lowest priced tickets are already unregulated, but are still offering journeys which in real terms are cheaper than they would have been in earlier years."

Both Virgin and GNER now allow cheap tickets to be booked up to the day before travel.

The Virgin spokesman said: "Sales of advanced purchase cheap tickets have increased substantially since we removed the original deadline of three, seven and 14 days last September.

"But there will always be a place for a reasonable turn-up-and-go fare because one of the great advantages of rail travel in Britain is the ability to just turn up and get on a train."

It's also claimed that many peak hour 'open return' tickets are absurdly overpriced, with the result that many peak hour trains are actually running half full, and most of the people who do travel on these trains have some kind of discounted ticket. One wonders why a business which still receives substantial government subsidy is allowed to waste resources by running well below capacity in the peaks.

I have to say I don't totally trust Virgin Trains. I've suspected they would dearly love to turn into a 'grounded airline' with compulsory reservations for all services, probably accompanied by a byzantine 'demand-based' fares scheme. This would be a lot more convenient for the operator, even if it's far more cumbersome and inflexible for the traveller.

Hopefully, market forces won't allow them to get away with it, but not being a libertarian ideologue, I don't totally trust market forces either.